5 Things Daenerys Targaryen Never Expected About Westeros
by redcandle
Summary: Dany deals with various issues as she secures her seat on the Iron Throne.


1\. King's Landing was a cesspit. The cities of the East had their own horrors but none of them had been squalid. Dany could scarcely believe ithis/i was the capital of the Targaryen dynasty. The city was small by the standards she was used to, and the buildings were ugly and unsophisticated. Worst of all, it was absolutely filthy. Residents emptied their chamber pots out their windows with no care for the people who tread the streets below them.

The Red Keep Viserys had spoken of so often had its own sort of impressiveness. Dany could appreciate her ancestor's choice to build his castle overlooking the city and the bay, and the red bricks were striking. But after the magnificent palaces she'd stayed in as a guest, and grand pyramids she'd gained by right of conquest, it was a humble seat. No matter how she reminded herself that it was built for and by dragons, and that she had avenged her family and reclaimed their seat for her own, the Red Keep was a disappointment.

Worse than its lack of splendor was the void it left unfilled inside her. It did not feel like home, and she knew that it never would. Home had been the house with the red door, and home had been Drogo's tent amid the Dothraki sea. Westeros was the end of her long journey but she still had not reached home.

2\. They did not affect the false tears of the Qartheen, or the brutal customs of the Ghiscari, but the Westerosi nobles were no less tiresome. Dany did not trust even those who had greeted her as a hero and savior. Had the Mummer's Dragon's plot to poison her children not failed, these same flatters would be fawning just as adoringly over him rather than her.

The Tyrells had no excuse; they were rank opportunists. Yet they tried so hard to ingratiate themselves. Lady Margaery, Ser Garlan, and Ser Loras all spoke so charmingly, and they distributed so many gifts of food and drink that the city was merry despite the lingering grip of winter. None of it changed the fact that Highgarden had allied itself with whichever usurper put a crown on its daughter's head.

"Lady Margaery," Dany said, weary but pleased that she kept her weariness from her face and voice, "You have been the bride of one king after another: Renly Baratheon, Joffrey Baratheon, Tommen Baratheon, and the pretender who called himself Aegon Targaryen. You are more a queen than I." She paused for her courtiers to laugh, and noted the Tyrells did a very good job of hiding the nervousness and fear they surely felt. "Were I a man, I suppose I would have been offered your hand in marriage as well!" More laughter.

She smiled with a benevolence she did not feel. "Alas, I am a woman, and I shall have to settle for your companionship as my lady-in-waiting." Margaery Tyrell bowed and smiled prettily, though Dany knew she understood.

"Ser Loras, all of Westeros agrees that you are the finest knight in the realm - therefore you imust/i be a part of my Queensguard." Ser Loras went to his knees and allowed Ser Barristan to drape a white cloak around his shoulders.

There. She would keep Lord Tyrell's only daughter and his most beloved son with her at all times - and at the first sign of shifting allegiance, she would have both their heads.

3\. The first rebellion came where she least expected it. She knew some in Dorne blamed her for Quentyn's death rather than accept that it was his own foolishness that caused his demise. But she also knew that the Dornish hated the Lannisters for the murder of their princess - her brother Rhaegar's wife - and her children, and that Dorne and the Reach had been feuding for centuries. They had no allies and surely would not challenge her rule alone.

Yet shortly after the death of Prince Doran, his daughter and successor Princess Arianne declared Dorne an independent principality, bound in no way to the Iron Throne. Dany could not let such defiance pass.

Her army - far more vast than the one that had conquered this realm - camped in the Dornish Marches while her navy sailed around to encircle the peninsula that was Dorne. She iwould/i be victorious. But Dany hated the thought of all the innocents who would suffer in such a war.

There were catapults set up that lobed massive rocks at them, but Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion easily evaded the missiles. Dany and her dragon-riders were able to bring Sunspear to its knees in a matter of days. And yet she felt no joy, wondering if she'd always have to defend her claim with brutality.

4\. The lords who presumed to advise her all argued that she should give Storm's End to their wife's cousin's brother or, according to the most sycophantic of them, to "her most loyal and devoted servant." All were in disagreement with her decision. It made no matter. She was the Queen. And that her decision and refusal to waiver from it distressed them so much was all to the better; she might listen to them, but now they knew she did not have to heed them.

Stannis Baratheon had been the Usurper's brother and had himself falsely claimed her throne, but at least he had defended the realm. Dany could respect him, and she felt she owed his only child better than merely providing a dowry and arranging her marriage to some knight or the other - and certainly better than the beheading her more ruthless advisers urged.

Once she had lost patience with them before the whole court. "My lords, I command you to slit the girl's throat right here and now if you truly deem her death in my best interest."

None of them had moved, though Shireen Baratheon was mere yards away from them. None of them had spoken either, cowards that they were. Dany knew very well that none of them could personally murder an innocent, helpless girl - had she believed them capable of such a thing, she would have sent them far from her.

"I am returning Storm's End to you," she told Shireen as they dined in her private quarters one evening.

"Thank you, Your Grace. I'll be loyal, I swear it."

The girl was only a few years younger than herself, but perhaps it was the sadness in her or perhaps the mark greyscale had left on her that made Dany feel protective of her. Perhaps it was because she was a distant cousin and the last living relative Dany had. They were not family, but they might have been if Robert Baratheon had never launched his rebellion.

5\. They were waiting for her belly to swell. Irri and Jhiqui were utterly loyal to her, but Dany knew her Westerosi maids were paid for information about her bed and her body. She knew that each time her moon blood spotted her sheets, one faction would be despairing while another faction schemed wildly.

A realm with a childless monarch was only a death away from war. Never mind that she was a young woman and it would be many, many years before her death. The lords and even the peasants wanted an heir now. She could not tell them what Mirri Maz Duur had told her: that she would never bear a living child.

So she blamed her empty womb on her consort and had the High Septon dissolve her marriage. She suffered an empty bed, with only Irri's occasional comfort, for the sake of her kingdom, before she finally remarried. She picked for her husband a man who had never fathered any children, and after his death, her diplomats engaged in a four year courtship with a Pentoshi prince that came to naught. She even married a high lord known to prefer the charms of other men. But this deception could only last for so long.

She had sat the Iron Throne for nine years when her former consort impregnated his second wife. Her Master of Whispers brought her the news and with it a subtle offer to arrange the couple's demise before the pregnancy became widely known.

She was a Queen and a conqueror; she had not been vulnerable to anyone for a very long time. She was about to give her assent when she remembered the wine-seller who had tried to poison her on Robert Baratheon's orders. Dany never thought it would be so challenging to be better than the men who'd sat this throne before her.


End file.
